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Product designers and engineers are drawn to the idea of modularity. I am guilty – I find modular product concepts irresistibly compelling. It seems every few years, a new product or concept comes out that stokes that interest – promising all the benefits of modularity, yet with none of the costs. The most recent high-profile…

I was very excited to see Tesla provide more details on their Solar Roof. A bunch of smart people have already started to dig into the details to try and figure out the true cost, including GTM and PickMySolar. I have been skeptical of this product – so many have tried and failed. But, the…

As an engineer, I had the typical mild level of disdain for “business people” – marketers, MBAs, people with fuzzy backgrounds that appeared so confident, despite not knowing the basic laws of physics. I took pride in my engineering-ness. I huddled with my fellow engineers, quietly smirking after the business people left the room, telling…

There are technologies that come along every so often and completely change your experience with a product. And change your baseline for what is normal, despite a mental resiliency built from years of habit and repetitive experience. One example of this was Tivo, which transformed the way we consume media, with the ability to time-shift…

I spent several years at SolarBridge Technologies, an AC Module company (acquired by SunPower in 2014). So, disclosure: I may have some bias. Microinverters and AC Modules generally cost more than the competing solutions – they are a premium product that provides unique benefits. You need to get very good at explaining those benefits to customers…

In 2006, I was working at design firm IDEO on a research project for newly-IPO’d First Solar, who was interested in getting into the residential solar market. We talked to early adopters, tech luddites, installers, and everyone in between, to understand how they felt about home solar. Few people understood, and fewer cared – it was ugly, confusing,…

Welcome to Realization Ventures! We are a consulting firm built to bring new ideas to life. We help companies, big and small, to visualize their future, and design and launch new products, services, and businesses. We work across several industries, including energy, consumer and industrial products, and Internet-of-Things. We are builders – we don’t want to deliver PowerPoint, but…